AMD unveils new Catalyst driver

Jul 13, 2015

AMD has announced its new AMD Catalyst 15.7 Driver update delivering seamless and intuitive support for Windows 10 and the DirectX 12 API, and is a primary ingredient for users to get the most out of their AMD APU and GPU solutions.

The AMD Catalyst 15.7 driver is a foundational driver that will help enrich the user experience through more reliable performance, innovative features and technologies. The AMD Catalyst driver will be fully integrated with Microsoft Windows 10 as part of the Windows driver update component.

AMD APUs and Radeon GPUs running Windows 10 will be able to deliver a highly advanced entertainment experience by making games and streaming video look better than ever; making the PC experience more personal, more productive and seamless across devices.

A comprehensive set of key AMD enabled features include:
* Ability to stream content at the highest resolutions (4K and beyond) thanks to hardware-based HEVC decoder
* Activating Microsoft DirectX 12 and AMD’s Freesync Technology will help make your games look great on your AMD-based PC running Windows 10
* Responsive resume times powered by AMD and Windows 10 let you spend less time waiting and more time doing because your PC wakes up from sleep quickly.
* Window Display Driver Model (WDDM) 2.0 works with Windows 10 to reduce the driver workload on graphics hardware. Display modes can be changed quickly and without the bothersome flicker that Windows users had to endure in the past.

The launch of the AMD Catalyst 15.7 driver provides significant feature updates to enhance the end user experience, including:
* Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC) enables fine-tuning your graphics card for more stable and consistent performance in games with real-time frame rate control limiting the maximum frame rate during gameplay – and delivers the benefits of reduced system/GPU power consumption, lower system temps, and lower fan speeds for quieter operation. Now supporting AMD Radeon R7 260 and above GPUS.
* Virtual Super Resolution (VSR) provides image quality enhancement to gamers and Windows desktop users (renders at high resolution then down-scales; giving effective Super Sample Anti-Aliasing). Now supporting AMD Radeon R7 260 and above GPUS, as well as desktop A-Series 7400K and above APUS with Single and Multi-GPU configurations with more supported VSR modes!
* AMD FreeSync Technology eliminates screen tearing without lag and latency. And now it works in Crossfire mode! You just need a FreeSync capable AMD component and a FreeSync compatible monitor. The full list of announced monitors can he found here.

“We are very excited about what AMD is bringing to gaming with the new capabilities in the latest AMD Catalyst Driver,” says Kam VedBrat, principal group program manager, Microsoft Corp. “With full support for DirectX 12 and WDDM 2.0 in this latest AMD Catalyst driver for AMD APU and Radeon Graphics processors, customers can benefit from improved multithreaded scaling and CPU utilization; reduced GPU overhead; and ultimately richer, smoother, more compelling games.”